Oscar winner Ryan Bingham has written and recorded a song for the Christian Bale Western 'Hostiles.'

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Oscar winning singer-songwriter Ryan Bingham returns to film with the new track “How Shall a Sparrow Fly,” a bleak-but-beautiful ballad that appears in the new Western drama Hostiles.

Written and performed by the gritty roots rocker and modeled on a traditional Scots-Irish dirge, the song is anchored by mandolin and orchestral strings, while haunting, fractured vocals invoke the balance of life and death in an unforgiving world. Set in the late 1800s, Bingham plays Sergeant Malloy in the film and sings the track as a small group of soldiers travel by horseback from New Mexico to Montana.

The project finds Bingham reuniting with director Scott Cooper, who also led the filming of 2009’s Crazy Heart and helped Bingham earn an Academy Award, Grammy, Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice Award for that film’s theme song, “The Weary Kind.” Likewise, “How Shall a Sparrow Fly” is one of 70 qualifying songs in consideration for this year’s Best Original Song Oscar.

Hostiles stars Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike and arrives in theaters nationwide January 19th, while the original motion picture soundtrack comes out January 5th.